In order to begin to deal with a professional smokehouse, you need to understand what smoking is. This process is a food processing technology using air and smoke. In addition to giving it a very pungent smell and taste, this process can also increase the shelf life of food. The main purpose of a professional smokehouse is to accelerate the smoking process, by means of the formation of a concentration of wood smoldering products in the chamber.
General description of the apparatus
A professional unit of this type is intended for cooking using the cold or hot method, as well as for its further implementation in retail outlets. Such devices are designed to work with a large amount of food, and therefore are not suitable for use in apartments or houses.
If we talk about the purpose, then a professional smokehouse is a device that artificially pumps smoke in the chamber, which greatly accelerates the smoking process. You can cook meat, fish, sausage in this equipment. For cooking, a hot, half-hot, cold method is used. It is worth adding that certain models have mixed smoking functions. This means that the appliance sprays liquid during operation, which is designed to enhance the taste and smell of cooked food.
Most often, such units are used in the restaurant business. The main difference from the domestic one is the size and power, due to which it is possible to process a large number of products in a short time. For example, a professional fish smokehouse, which belongs to the mini class, is able to cook up to 300 kg of fish in one load.
Main element
The main feature, like the main structural element, is the working chamber of the unit. It is in this chamber that all smoking processes take place. Everything else is additional mixes and equipment, which are intended only to enhance the taste, smell, and can also reduce cooking time.
Device and mode of operation
Among the features of electric professional smokers can be distinguished and the fact that they can work in semi-automatic or fully automatic mode. This allows a person to be either temporarily or completely absent during the cooking process. If the unit is set to automatic operation, then it will be guided by the specified parameters of humidity, time and temperature for smoking food.
An addition for ease of use is the display and various control panels. In addition, more expensive devices have a built-in microcontroller that is able to memorize and reproduce the previously set smokehouse operation mode. The work of a professional smokehouse for meat or another product is as follows:
- food products are laid out on grilles or hung on hooks in the upper part of the chamber;
- the location of sawdust in the bottom or side of the unit;
- sealing the working chamber of the smokehouse and subsequent heating to a temperature of 50 to 120 degrees Celsius;
- the following is a direct cooking process, which lasts from 2 to 24 hours, depending on the size of the product, as well as on the power of the device.
Types of appliances
To date, there are two main types of equipment that differ in the way they are connected. The equipment can be electric or gas.
To date, it is the stationary or portable type electrical installations that are most popular. There is no need for complex connection operations, the devices operate from a conventional network. Gas units are used in industry only as a professional smoked smokehouse. The cold method is not used in gas installations. The installations themselves cannot be portable, they are always stationary and also have a rather complicated design.
The classification of professional equipment is also carried out by the method of processing raw materials.
The first way is hot smoking. In this case, the food is cooked at a temperature of 80 to 120 degrees Celsius, which helps to accelerate the cooking process, but the shelf life is significantly reduced.
The second method is considered semi-hot and is carried out at a temperature of 50 to 80 degrees Celsius. The last method is cold smoked. Professional smokehouses with this mode of operation cook food at a temperature of 20 to 50 degrees. Cooking can take up to 5 days, but the shelf life in this case increases to several weeks.
Other properties of the smokehouse
Using the smokehouse for its intended purpose is quite simple. It is worth adding here that professional units of both cold and hot smoking can be used as a cabinet oven, for example. Electronic temperature control allows you to create all the necessary conditions for this, and the controller is able to memorize and reproduce these operating modes in the future.
In addition, an element such as a smoke generator is also present in the design. This is an external type chamber in which a heating element and a tray with wet chips for heating are placed. Professional cold, hot smoked smokehouses have the following advantages:
- when the smoke generator is turned off, the temperature in the working chamber does not change;
- maximum simplicity of work in the mode of cold smoking;
- there is the opportunity to repeat the duty cycle without opening the doors;
- additional equipment can be installed on the smoker to save space.
Features of meat processing
If it is necessary to carry out cold smoking of meat, then it is important to know what the preliminary procedures are. Due to the fact that meat has a denser structure than fish, for example, and also is characterized by slow diffusion, before cold smoking it is necessary that the food passes the preliminary ambassador within 20-30 days at a temperature of +3 degrees Celsius. After passing through this procedure, the meat goes into the category of semi-finished product, and it must also be dried and subjected to dehydration. The smoking process itself takes from 2 to 5 days. The slow process is compensated by the fact that the maximum amount of protein and meat enzymes is maintained.
Cooking fish
As for fish, it must also undergo preliminary training. It is necessary to defrost and wash the product, if necessary, gut it. Then it is sorted by size and salted. To avoid destruction of the integrity of the structure, you need to tie the fish with a rope.
When using a professional smokehouse, the fish goes through three stages of preparation:
- Drying stage. During this stage, liquid is partially removed from the fish at a temperature not exceeding 80 degrees Celsius.
- Stage of steaming the goods. At this time, the fish undergoes a heat treatment process at a temperature above 100 degrees.
- Smoking. At this stage, the smell of smoke and sweetness is imparted to the fish. This process lasts no more than 4 hours.
In addition to fish and meat, in professional equipment you can also cook lard and smoked products - sausage, for example.
Brief description of the work process
It is worth a little more attention to pay to the cold smoking process, since it is longer and somewhat more complicated than hot. Cold smoking occurs at a temperature of 18 to 25 degrees Celsius. In addition, moisture is removed very slowly, which increases the cooking time to several days, but the product itself will be stored for a very long time. To equip such a smoking process, the smokehouse must have not only a working chamber and a smoke generator, but also a pipeline, passing through which, the smoke will be cooled.
Electric professional smokehouses for hot smoking in this regard are somewhat simpler in design, since there is no need for cooling hot smoke.